


Psych 101

by watcherofworlds



Series: Whumptober 2020 [12]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s03e10 Left Behind, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Prompt Fill, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: Prompt fill for Whumptober Day 11 "Psych 101"
Series: Whumptober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956160
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Psych 101

Felicity no longer knew how much time had passed her by while she sat on her couch, unable to make herself move or stop crying. She’d already cried so much that her cheeks felt stiff from the crust of salt her tears had left behind, but still they kept coming.

_ Oliver’s gone _ , a voice in the back of her mind kept whispering, over and over again, as if she needed the reminder.  _ He’s gone, and he’s never coming back. _

If Felicity was grateful for anything in that moment, it was that she’d gone home to have her breakdown, so that Dig and Roy wouldn’t know that she’d been lying when she’d said that she was fine. If she’d been in the Foundry, where she was surrounded by reminders of Oliver, there’d be no chance that the tears would ever stop. If she couldn’t see the salmon ladder towering in front of her workstation, if she couldn’t look at the mannequin that held the Arrow suit, if she couldn’t catch glimpses of the worktable tucked away near the back of the lair, if she was far from all the spaces where Oliver should have been and never would be again, then surely, eventually, she’d be able to pull herself together enough to stop crying.

This soon proved to be a naive notion, however. Felicity could feel the time ticking by, at least an hour or more gone by since she’d left the Foundry, but still the tears kept coming.

“Come on,” she told herself, pressing the heels of hands against her eyes until she saw stars, but all for nothing. “Pull yourself together. For all you know, Malcolm might be wrong. I know you tested the blood, and I know it was Oliver’s, but he could still be alive. He’s survived worse. And Malcolm said that he couldn’t recover a body, and if there’s no body, there’s still a chance…” She trailed off, realizing that it was useless to try and convince herself of that. She knew the truth- just as that little voice had been telling her for the last hour, Oliver was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. A second realization came to her at that moment- it was pointless to keep trying to stop herself from crying. It was a necessary part of the grieving process, a way to release all of the negative emotions she was feeling, and only once she’d let that happen could she begin to figure out how to move on.

When it was over, Felicity felt exhausted and hollowed out. She dragged herself up from her couch and into her bedroom, collapsing in a heap on her bed. She ignored the voicemails from Ray wanting to know why she wasn’t at Palmer Tech, the texts from Dig asking if she was okay, ignored everything except her need to sleep. 

In her dreams, Oliver was alive. He was alive, and he was with her, and she was almost sorry when she awoke and had to leave those dreams behind. But she knew that she couldn’t allow herself to get caught up in dreams of what would never be and forget to live. However hard living would be now, she still had to find some way to keep on doing it.


End file.
